You’re not perfect. The sooner you accept it, the quicker you can grow. How to reduce perfectionism and ACTUALLY embrace self love..
This week is about:
How to let go of perfection, when conditional love is all you have known.
Disclaimer: This newsletter provides general advice for educational and entertainment purposes only, it is not intended to be professional therapeutic or medical advice. Please speak with a registered mental health professional or book a session here to receive professional support.
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Hey Friends,
Expecting ourselves or others to always do things right, every single time, with no mistakes and flaws, because we should always know what to do and how to do it.
Flying to the moon without a rocketship or space suit, just pure willpower 🧠
Me, finally accepting that One Direction are likely never getting back together 💔💔
Sorry, sorry. I thought we were just listing things that are physically, mentally and emotionally impossible.
Let’s dig into this weeks universal dilemma: unconditional luvvin’ for ourselves.
PSA I think this week is going to be helpful for anyone who struggles with embracing their own imperfections.
Anytime I say “family”, just replace with “past relationships” or “societal modelling” -
whatever is relevant for you!!!
❤️
This plant in my bedroom is less than perfect.
But i’m still loving it with all the sunshine, water and attention (granted, potentially too much given the state of it’s wilted leaves… ).
Why can’t we acknowledgement our flaws YET still love ourselves despite them, in the same way we do for others?
This weeks qu is..
“How to embrace being perfectly imperfect,
when love has been so conditional on perfection in childhood?”
There are 2 important things to understand if we truly want to embrace being perfectly imperfect ❤️🩹
❤️🩹 #1: As humans, we are pretty crap at understanding and perceiving grey areas.
Genuinely, we are geared toward thinking in black + white, good + bad, all or nothing.
And especially if you have low self esteem or anxiety, you’re prooobably pretty sensitive to thinking YOU are bad, others are good. This natural human bias turns it’s focus on YOU.
That you must be 100% perfect all the time, or you’re a failure/terrible person/insert other judgement about yourself.
Instead of being able to understand you’re a human being who is complex and shocker… makes mistakes.
Like all of the other 7.9 billion people on the planet.
So, we need to increase the grey areas to help you understand you are not bad.
And the good does not go away if you do something or say something “imperfect”.
❤️🩹 #2: Your family upbringing has a lot to answer for.
Now, these are just guesses, because idk your fam - but this is what is likely going on when people expect unrealistic perfection from us (family, partners, friends).
From a systemic, family therapy lens.. In relationships like this, you serve a purpose or a need to keep things going. It would disrupt them if you were imperfect or made mistakes (AKA were just a human). It would be inconvenient, against their understanding of the world and require unconditional love (which you deserve 100% and is the pillar of good parenting, but some people don’t know how to give that).
The key to embracing being imperfect is separating yourself NOW from the past stuff you’ve internalised, now you’re older and can see it is isn’t a problem with you and never was.
We need to shatter the illusion that anyone could ever be perfect, and manage what happens in your head or body when you’re not perfect (self judgment, criticism, feeling like a bad person).
The whole perfectionism thing is a bit like it got stuck in childhood and your brain didn’t evolve to understand what is going on.
Putting you on an unfair “special exemption” while i’m sure you can see how other people get moody, act selfishly, aren’t always perfect and yet i’m sure you give them some grace, but can’t extend that to yourself.
🌸 Here’s how to actually turn this into deeper understanding that lasts,
so you can unconditionally treat yourself right (as you deserve!!)
Separate the you that you want to be (and are!) from your upbringing.
Conditional love isn’t a right, ethical or fair way to parent children.
Sorry to be so blunt, but that’s the fact.
The issue is that we internalise these things from our family that are unfair, misguided or just wrong — to be true and a reflection of who we are.
Because as kids we didn’t know any different, and these parts of us remain stuck inside of us as “true”.
So, you need to grow the adult part of you that knows that and quieten down the part of you.
Legitimately seeing these as voices/parts of yourself is a really good way to do this — give it a name, give it a persona.
Then say “shhhhhhhh… this is the adult me, we’re steering the ship now”
And conditional love and perfection is NOT how we run things.Normalise every single time you do something that is “imperfect”, just like you should have been told as a kid/teen/young adult by your parents.
When you compare, make a mistake, feel something “not good” —
What is the inner chatter/judgement afterward?
What expectations are you putting on yourself that you are set up to fail because they’re impossible?
What is really the pay off of trying to be SO perfect all the time?
Is it really worth it?
What would happen if you could just give in a little, lean into softness and say..
”Hey.. It’s alright.
I tried.
I am trying.
I am not always going to get it right.
I am good in so many ways.
I know my values, my passions and what I want life to be about.
And the torture that the quest for perfection puts me through isn’t one of them”
❤️
Sending you lots of luck + love,
Ellie
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3. This is a really interesting study about conditional parental regard/love, that I think some of us will find really interesting.
An excerpt:
Across 31 samples in total, greater parental conditional regard was significantly associated with more introjected regulation (r = .33), contingent self esteem (r=.29), and level of depressive symptoms (r=.22); and less relatedness (r = .24).
… yikes.
I see clients for online counselling Australia-wide for issues with family and relationship trauma, anxiety, depression and life direction issues.
* I am able to see clients outside in Australia in select countries, get in touch to clarify.
I am a specialist in adolescent therapy, after specialising in both my degrees, clinical placements and further training in adolescent, youth and family therapy. I run Professional Development trainings and workshops for fellow therapists working with teen counselling.
